Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
He was the hope of the family, the little first-grader who was learning to speak English, his parents told the teacher. He would be the first member of the family to graduate from high school, to learn another language, to be a success.
The small family's commitment to education and to their new country was driven home when the teacher left the school building shortly after talking to the student's father. Sitting on a bench outside the school were the parents and the 6-year-old. The father had on his lap his son's first-grade-level reading book, and was slowly going through it, learning, with his son's help, to speak and read English.
The growing number of non-English-speaking students in Warsaw Community Schools has educators scrambling for funding and personnel to deal with language and cultural barriers.
While it was not unusual for some English-as-a-Second-Language students to be enrolled in Warsaw's public schools, their ranks have grown by 1100 percent since 1994, according to WCS Assistant Superintendent Dr. Anthony Etienne.
In 1994, there were 36 ESL students in Warsaw schools, Etienne told the Warsaw School Board last week. As of Tuesday there were 432 ESL students enrolled district-wide (enrollment figures for Jan. 31 put student enrollment in Warsaw schools at 6,303).
Since the school district's priority is to educate, not simply warehouse, students, how do the schools overcome the language and cultural barriers? What accommodations are made to help ESL students succeed in Warsaw's public schools?
According to Wendy Long, ESL director for Warsaw Community Schools, eight instructors are at the elementary schools to help non-English speaking students (two elementaries, Atwood and Claypool, have no ESL students this year). Two teachers work with middle school students and one teacher specializes in ESL students at Warsaw Community High School.
Even with added personnel, Long said, "We're just always playing catch-up."
When ESL students register for school, they are tested to see where they rate on a predetermined scale for English proficiency. The scale goes from zero, which is knowing absolutely no English, to five, the most proficient.
Long said of the 432 students this year, 86 enrolled at level one. While some of the students in Kosciusko County are Asian, Arabic, Oriental and African, the majority of the ESL students, she said, speak Spanish.
In the elementary schools, instructors go into the classrooms to work with the ESL students or pull the students out of class to work with them as a group, Long said.
At the high school level there is a regular class for ESL students, in which half the time is spent working on English and half is spent helping them with their homework.
Most teachers, Long said, will make adjustments on assignments for ESL students, depending on their level of proficiency in English. For example, a math teacher may not require the students to complete as many story problems as other students until the ESL student has a better grasp of English.
Etienne said the schools' priority in educating these students is to integrate them into the regular student body by helping them learn English. Long's staff does translate some vital school signs and important information into Spanish, but "we try to avoid dual-language signs in schools as much as possible," he said.
Translators are vital, especially when the school needs to communicate with the students' parents or guardian, such as at a parent-teacher conference. In those cases, Long said, staff members will be available to translate.
Long's office also will try to match up translators with students' families, if the families request it.
"We also think that the families are in America and they need to make an effort to find someone to translate for them," she said.
She has made available for all teachers a packet of information that includes simple Spanish phrases and questions.
The huge increase in ESL students in Warsaw schools hasn't carried over to other school districts in the county. According to superintendents in Whitko and Triton districts, there has been little, if any, demand for ESL instructors or classes in their schools.
Wawasee schools have ESL students and classes, said ESL coordinator Alice Navarro, but the demand is not as great as Warsaw's.
Of the 3,516 students in Wawasee schools, 120 are in the ESL program in all grades, she said, with 87 of those still learning English. The rest of the students use the program for reinforcement and support.
As with Warsaw, most of Wawasee's ESL students are Hispanic, Navarro said, though not all Hispanic students speak English as a second language.
"Most of the Hispanics in this area are settled, have been for 20, 30 years," she said.
Funding for ESL programs and personnel is a constant concern for Long and Navarro, and usually takes the form of grants from state government.
The Indiana Department of Education gives districts a maximum of $53 each school year for every child in ESL programs. Some grants also are available for children of migrants, upon proof that their parents work in agriculture, and for students born outside the United States who have been in U.S. schools for less than three years.
"There is some federal money but it's very hard to get," Long said.
Cultural differences also exist, and both Long and Navarro said community acceptance of different nationalities is a must.
"This is here to stay. They are here to stay," Long said. "We have stereotypes. I think that we have to accept that things are different. They're not better or worse, they're just different. People are just people."
